THINK of knowledge as a small region in an immense sea of ignorance, and the challenge of those who find it is to push its limits outward. "The most important product of knowledge is informed, intelligent ignorance," said Dr. David Jonathan Gross, Nobel Laureate for physics in 2004.
I can honestly admit I brought a lot of ignorance during Dr. Gross' presentation last Friday at the University of San Carlos. So it was a relief when Dr. Gross deviated from "The coming revolutions in fundamental physics" and talked instead about the lessons of science, among them openness, the need for internationalism, and the willingness and ability to keep asking questions.
The work that won Dr. Gross his Nobel Prize (shared with Franck Wilczek and H. David Politzer) proved that the force between quarks varies with distance: when the quarks are close together, the force that holds them together is weak, but "pull them apart and the force gets so strong that you can't pull them out of a proton." He adds: "That's pretty weird!"
(Blog-only aside: It's this almost palpable sense of wonder that makes Dr. Gross a compelling speaker. Check out this interview he did with PBS. And it's a sure sign of how unsophisticated my mind is that his brief summation of asymptotic freedom also sounds to me like relationship advice.)
Because Dr. Gross is one of the rock stars of string theory, I was planning to ask what implications it would have, if scientists prove that the universe isn't made up of sub-atomic particles, like quarks and leptons, but instead of tiny strings, vibrating endlessly. Where would that knowledge lead us? What good would it do? Would I have to alter my retirement plans? (As I was pitching this assignment the night before the talk, one newsroom colleague joked, "And how does this affect the foreign exchange rate?")
Indeed, the gap between research and application is the first thing most of us are likely to see. Knowledge is deemed more valuable if it has immediate uses, especially if these uses prop up some corporations' bottom line. That's not entirely bad news. It helps explain, for example, why the most generous contributors of scientific research funding in the Philippines, after the government, are the electronics and semiconductors industries.
Apart from the lack of funding, there are the challenges of training more scientists and improving the quality of basic science education. Filipino physicists have pointed out that in the Philippines, there are so few practicing physicists that we literally have a one-in-a-million chance of meeting one.
We are unlikely to grasp the wonders of the universe with the results from our schoolrooms. In 2006-2007, the average score in science achievement tests among sixth-graders was 51.58 percent. (It was 60.29 percent in math.) Among sophomore high school students in the same school year, the average science achievement score was 41.99 percent.
But as I listened to Dr. Gross list the questions he has been contemplating for nearly 40 years, I got gooseflesh. "How do the forces of nature unify? How did time start? How did the universe begin? Is it cyclic, or something even wilder? What is the nature of space and time?"
It must be a tremendous gift, to spend one's time and energy grappling with such large questions. How can we make this gift available to more Filipino students?
(Appears in the Op-Ed pages of today's Sun.Star Cebu.)
6 comments:
Sadly, or rightly, there is One answer to all his questions.
But one world-government, one-planet government, in this world and time?
Then again, maybe we will confirm the Answer sooner than 2100 if the forecasts are correct.
Hi! Yep, that bit about one world government seemed a stretch, but you've got to consider he was here (with no honorarium) for a "brains, not bullets" type of program.
Regards,
Sol
Correct. Oh, did you read about the
Surfer dude who stuns physicists with theory of everything:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/main.jhtml?xml=/earth/2007/11/14/scisurf114.xml&CMP=ILC-mostviewedbox
Is he for real?
In terms of practical applications, the advances in physics do have an impact on our daily lives. I just read that GPS devices need to account for the effects of General Relativity or else they will not be accurate enough for road navigation.
Hi, Pete,
Ex-cel-lent! (Ok, you probably didn't watch Keanu Reeves movies as much as I did and won't get that comment, but that only means your taste in movies is better than mine. :) The "surfer dude" has a PhD in theoretical physics, so you never know, he might be on to something. Very generous of the Telegraph to compare him to Einstein, no? Btw, if you can find Alan Lightman's "Einstein's Dreams," it's a fantastic read. It has helped me deal with airport waits and delayed-flight stress, which is appropriate, considering it's a meditation on the nature of time. :)
Cheers,
Sol
P.S. Good luck once the Banilad-Talamban flyover project starts. The traffic is going to pile up in your neck of the woods.
Hi, cvj,
There's microelectronics and biomedical research too. But during his talk, one point that Dr. Gross made was that there's usually an element of serendipity in finding practical applications from theoretical physics. Chasing after the big questions--the nature of time, the Theory of Everything, etc.--is what drives them. The more practical stuff, from laptops and portable music players to GPS devices and MRIs, are almost accidental. But that doesn't mean governments or corporations should invest less in "pure" research.
Cheers,
Sol
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